News Release
The Cleveland Orchestra announces 2009-10 fiscal results
Release Date: December 1, 2010
CLEVELAND – The Musical Arts Association (MAA), governing body of The Cleveland Orchestra, Severance Hall, and Blossom Music Center, released its year-end results at its annual meeting on Tuesday, November 30. For the 2009-10 fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2010, operating results netted a deficit of $2.3 million, on total operating revenues of $40.1 million and operating expenses of $42.4 million. Included in that revenue figure was the last $2.5 million of Bridge Funds, gifts given to help cover shrinking operating deficits during the five years of the Turnaround Plan. Also during the 2009-10 fiscal year, the Orchestra’s endowment increased nearly $10 million to approximately $106 million.
Trustee Election
Officers of the Board of Trustees re-elected at the annual meeting include Dennis W. LaBarre, President; Richard J. Bogomolny, Chairman; The Honorable John D. Ong, Vice President; Norma Lerner, Honorary Chair; Raymond T. Sawyer, Secretary; and Beth E. Mooney, Treasurer. Owen M. Colligan, Robert K. Gudbranson, Jeffrey A. Healy, and Margaret Fulton-Mueller were elected as Resident Trustees, and Herbert Kloiber, of Munich, Germany, was elected as a Non-resident Trustee.
Institutional change
“Innovative programming, coupled with our return to opera and ballet, will serve over time to broaden the Orchestra’s audiences and philanthropic base,” stated Gary Hanson, Executive Director. In 2009-10, the Orchestra introduced several new concert formats and continued to present opera and ballet, welcoming new audiences to both Severance Hall and Blossom Music Center. New subscription programs included the Celebrity Series and Fridays@7, a series of orchestral concerts followed by world music performances. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst continued presenting staged opera at Severance Hall with Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and the Joffrey Ballet appeared in two performances at Blossom Music Center in collaboration with the Orchestra.
Season highlights
The season began and ended at Severance Hall with celebratory fundraising events: In September, Franz Welser-Möst conducted a special performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for a benefit event led by the Orchestra’s younger Trustees in support of the Orchestra’s educational programs. In May, a Gala filled the concert hall with generous patrons who enjoyed intimate performances by the Orchestra’s principal musicians together with world percussionist and Fridays@7 curator Jamey Haddad.
This past season included a number of important recording projects. In February, Mr. Welser-Möst led a program of music by Richard Wagner recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. Mitsuko Uchida continued the cycle of live concert recordings of Mozart piano concertos with a second installment taped in April for release by Decca this fall in Japan and in 2011 in the United States. Conductor Pierre Boulez led programs featuring music of Ravel and Mahler that were recorded for DVD and CD release on Deutsche Grammophon.
Under Mr. Welser-Möst’s direction, the Orchestra furthered its growing relationship with the music of Anton Bruckner, culminating in August with two performances of the composer’s monumental Symphony No. 8, in the original version, which were taped for television and DVD. A growing focus on the Bruckner symphonies will reach its apogee in a week-long residency at the Lincoln Center Festival in July 2011.
In June, the Orchestra presented an extraordinary performance of 21st-century music commissioned under the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow Program in celebration of the 10th anniversary of this important creative endeavor. Matthias Pintscher conducted four Lewis fellowship commissions by Dalbavie, Botti, Staud, and Pintscher, and members of the Orchestra gave an exciting performance of Louis Andriessen’s “Workers’ Union” during an extended interlude.
Community Music Initiative
An important element of the Orchestra’s 2009-10 season was the launch of a Community Music Initiative, designed to make it possible for more people of all ages in Northeast Ohio than ever before to connect with music. The ongoing Community Music Initiative incorporates an array of longstanding education and community offerings such as the Orchestra’s Education Concerts (attended by 16,000 students during the season) with new programs and events, including performances by the Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst’s direction at Cleveland Metropolitan School District public high schools. With free public concerts such as the 21st annual “Star-Spangled Spectacular” celebrating Independence Day on Public Square and the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Concert and Community Open House, the Orchestra reached more than 100,000 students and other people through these community presentations and education programs.
Miami Residency
The Cleveland Orchestra’s Miami Residency continued to thrive in 2010. In addition to three weekends of subscription concerts, the Orchestra achieved a new record of 17 formal partnerships with Miami-Dade organizations, and explored new concert formats with “Beethoven with a Twist,” combining casual dress and a post-concert classical cabaret. The Musical Arts Association of Miami, the trustee group responsible for fundraising for the Orchestra in Miami led by Daniel R. Lewis, continued to be a catalyst for Miami-Dade’s growing international stature for excellence in orchestral performance and music education. An education highlight in 2010 was Franz Welser-Möst leading the Orchestra in a performance at Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School.
Other Residencies and Tours
Domestically, Music Director Franz Welser-Möst led the Orchestra in a concert at Carnegie Hall in May that literally received a review of “Wow!” from the New York Times. Mr. Welser-Möst and the Orchestra performed across Europe and presented their fourth residency at Vienna’s Musikverein in October-November 2009.
To request a PDF copy of the Annual Report, please contact Ana Papakhian at anap@clevelandorchestra.com.
